Teen’s mental health evaluation stalls rape, robbery trial

A judge will ultimately decide if a teenager is mentally fit to face charges that he broke into a 20-year-old Raceland woman’s home and raped and robbed her.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

A judge will ultimately decide if a teenager is mentally fit to face charges that he broke into a 20-year-old Raceland woman’s home and raped and robbed her.Jerry Cleveland Jr., also of Raceland, is accused of committing the crime with two other teenagers. His case has stalled because a judge sent him to the state’s mental hospital in Jackson to be evaluated.Cleveland appeared in Judge John LeBlanc’s courtroom Tuesday afternoon so the judge, the prosecution and his defense attorney could address state doctors’ findings. However, LeBlanc said those doctors haven’t been able to evaluate Cleveland well enough to determine if he is fit for court proceedings.“Part of it is due to Mr. Cleveland’s reluctance. Part of it is due to other issues,” LeBlanc said.LeBlanc pointed out Tuesday was Cleveland’s 18th birthday. That may affect which doctors evaluate him.Cleveland’s attorney, Mike Billiot, said based on his interpretation of doctors’ preliminary reports at the Jackson hospital, “there’s some indication he’s going to be determined to be competent.”“But I could be wrong,” Billiot said. “I’m not a psychologist.”If they find him incompetent, Cleveland will be sent back to the Jackson hospital where doctors will try to treat him to make him competent.Billiot was not representing Cleveland at the time his attorney requested the judge order a panel of psychologists and psychiatrists to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial. To be determined competent, he would have to understand the situation he’s in and be able to help his attorneys defend himself.Doctors’ records about Cleveland are sealed, court records show. Cleveland, who was 16 when the rape was reported, is the youngest of the three accused of raping and robbing the woman while her 3-year-old son was in the home. The Lafourche District Attorney’s Office decided to try him as an adult the day after he was arrested.His age has nothing to do with questions surrounding his mental competence, Billiot said.The victim alleges the crimes began soon after someone knocked on her front door March 6, 2012, asking if a man named Calvin was home, according to the police report. She said no, and that man left. About 15 minutes later, three men busted through her front door, one with a pistol.Two of them were wearing cloths over their faces as masks, but another was wearing a white muscle shirt with no mask. The victim, looking at a Facebook picture of Cleveland, later told detectives Cleveland was this unmasked intruder, the report says.They looted her home at gunpoint, and while passing her child’s room she saw her son playing video games, the report says. The detective’s report makes no other mention of the child.After the looting, all three men allegedly began to rape the woman. The unmasked man was the first to demand sex, the victim told detectives. Although all three had control of the pistol at some point, the unmasked man “appeared to be the leader” because he was the one who demanded money, then sex.The victim told detectives the same man who knocked on her door that day — not Cleveland — had knocked on her door the weekend earlier. Her boyfriend, who wasn’t home at the time, told detectives Devon Richard had knocked on his door that prior weekend, looking for a man named Byron, and seemed shocked that it was the boyfriend who answered the door, the report says. The boyfriend is not named Calvin or Byron.Richard and Darrel Thomas, both of Raceland and both 17 in March 2012, allegedly confessed to the rape and robbery less than 48 hours later, the Lafourche Sheriff’s Office has said. The Sheriff’s Office has not said whether Cleveland confessed, and that information is not in available police reports. Cleveland’s report is sealed because he was a minor at the time of his arrest.The mandatory sentence for those convicted of aggravated rape is life in prison or the death penalty. However, it would be extremely rare for a district attorney’s office to seek the death penalty in a rape case. Those convicted of armed robbery can be sentenced to up to 99 years in prison without parole.Richard and Thomas are on track to go to trial May 20, records show.LeBlanc, Billiot and prosecutors will meet in court again June 13 to discuss what Cleveland’s doctors have to say.

Staff Writer Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at 448-7617 or katie.urbaszewski@dailycomet.com.